The Car-Free Greek Island That Accidentally Built a New Traffic Jam
Spetses is one of the few places in Greece where private cars are essentially banned, but the island's roads are anything but quiet. Only permanent residents with a special permit can drive a car, and even then only outside the main village. Everyone else gets around on motorbikes, bicycles, horse-drawn carriages, ATVs, and electric scooters.
The problem is that it's working a little too well for the wrong reasons. The explosion in tourist numbers combined with an unchecked flood of ATVs (locally called "gourouness"), electric scooters, cargo tricycles, and motorbikes has created serious traffic congestion, especially during the summer months.
What was supposed to be a peaceful, car-free island is now dealing with gridlock from every other type of vehicle imaginable.
What was supposed to be a peaceful, car-free island is now dealing with gridlock from every other type of vehicle imaginable. The narrow cobblestone streets of Spetses were never designed for this kind of volume, and the situation gets worse every peak season.
The island still draws visitors looking for that rare, slower pace of Greek island life. But the traffic chaos is increasingly hard to ignore, and locals are feeling the pressure of uncontrolled tourist mobility more each year.
